Conservation of the Soil Crop Management and Soil Conservation

Abstract

SOIL conservation is as old as, and might indeed be regarded as synonymous with, agriculture. Ancient China, India and Persia knew about it, but during the last century, while great advances have been made in the art of soil exploitation to satisfy the needs of rapidly expanding populations, little attention has been paid to soil conservation, with the result that soil fertility has declined catastrophically and soil erosion has become almost universal. The consequences have been particularly disastrous in the United States, where the imperative necessity of putting back into the soil what pioneer farming took from it is now realized. At the present time, American agriculture is undergoing a fundamental and timely revolution, from which an art, as old as China and as new as the United States, will in due course emerge.

Conservation of the Soil

By Prof. A. F. Gustafson. (McGraw-Hill Publications in the Agricultural and Botanical Sciences.) Pp. xvii + 312. (New York and London: McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., 1937.) 18s.

Crop Management and Soil Conservation

Joseph F. Cox Dr. Lyman E. Jackson. (Wiley Farm Series.) Pp. xvii + 610. (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.; London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1937.) 13s. 6d. net.